Short Stuff: The Retirement Curse

Stuff You Should Know

The episode explores the 'retirement curse,' a phenomenon where retirees experience significant declines in mental and physical health. The

Key takeaways

• The average American faces a 6% to 9% decline in mental health within five to six years of retirement.
• Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows the percentage of people over 65 working hit a low of 10% in 1985.

Main topics

• The Retirement Curse
• Mental health decline in seniors

Notable quotes

The retirement curse is self-inflicted generally.

Conclusion

Retirement success depends on proactive planning regarding social enga

Transcript preview

Speaker 6 (0:00) This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Lisa, tell them about our new show. We have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie to Me. I'm Lexi Iwano. We're two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisa DiGiulio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions. And at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all. Now in my 30s, being the founder of New Shoes, good taste is my business. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 5 (0:35) So like by age 11 or so, at least 70 % have a phone. Speaker 3 (0:39) I'm Dr. Joy, and this is Therapy for Black Girls. We spin our surviving middle school run, getting into what's happening inside your kid's brain, the group chats and their friendships and what you can do about it. Speaker 4 (0:50) Your child is not doing this on purpose. Speaker 3 (0:53) That's the kind of perspective we've been pulling from the psychologists and psychiatrists who studied this for a living. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 4 (1:08) Hey, Speaker 2 (1:09) and welcome to the short stuff. Josh, Chuck, Jerry, Dave, short stuff, tally ho. Speaker 1 (1:16) Yeah, we're talking about retirement today and specifically what can be referred to as the retirement curse, which is this idea that, you know, maybe you're doing fine in life and you're chugging along at your job. And then you retire and you encounter all sorts of problems, maybe mental health problems, maybe physical health problems. And retirement can be the trigger to that kind of thing. Speaker 2 (1:42) Yeah. I mean, I think it's one of those things where a lot of people are familiar with anecdotally, like maybe they've seen somebody, you know, just their health declines very quickly or it's just something changes for the worse from retirement. And it's actually quantifiable. And apparently five to six years after retirement, this is just the average American. I suspect it's not quite as bad elsewhere. And in fact, I couldn't find mention of the retirement curse. As we're presenting it anywhere else, it does seem to be a semi-American phenomenon. Speaker 1 (2:17) But Speaker 2 (2:18) the average American shows a 6 % to 9 % decline in mental health within the first five to six years after retirement. A 5 % to 6 % increase in illness condition, right? Yeah. A 5 % to 16 % increase in difficulties with daily activities. And when they control all the other variables, they're like, it's... seems to be retirement. But of course, retirement itself is not doing this to you. It's all the life changes that come from retirement. Speaker 1 (2:48) Yeah, exactly. It's that transition. How you deal with that is really, really key and something that you really got to think about going into it. I hope if you're a person of retirement age, you've got a plan in place. We're going to talk more about that. But it seems like the worst. Cases are when people just retire and all of a sudden they're like, wait a minute, I have my days free all the time. I'm not going to this place anymore. If you went to an office, let's say, I'm not surrounded by people every day that I normally might be. You know, going to work is mental engagement. Speaker 3 (3:24) You know, Speaker 1 (3:25) even if you're not doing like hard labor, just getting up and getting out of bed and going to an office and moving about the world represents some kind of physical activity. And especially if when you retire, you just kind of hit the couch or the recliner. That's that's a big difference. Speaker 2 (3:41) Yeah. Also, like those people that you're interacting with, even if you work from home, just interacting with them on calls or via email. Like you don't have that all of a sudden. If you start emailing those same people, they're like, you retired. Go do your thing. I'm trying to work here. Yeah. You know, they don't let you in on calls any longer. And so if you don't already have a pretty tight circle of friends outside of work, which a lot of Americans do not. Speaker 1 (4:06) Yeah. Speaker 2 (4:07) Especially as you get older, it just gets harder and harder. to make